Around the world, the people choose

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Discontent with leaders is surging worldwide, and one way to address that is with a ballot. Egyptian women wait to vote at a polling center in Cairo during the country's first parliamentary election since Hosni Mubarak's ouster on Monday, November 28, 2011. Manu Brabo/AP

Polls opened in Congo's capital Kinshasa on Monday, November 28, 2011 as the government vowed to go ahead with its much-anticipated election despite massive logistical challenges. As day broke, a trickle of residents gathered outside polling stations, waiting to take part in a presidential and legislative election that could further consolidate the country's peace, or else drag it back into conflict. Jerome Delay/AP

A man carried a stack of newspapers with Spanish Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy on the front page in central Madrid on Nov. 21. Mr. Rajoy's conservative People's Party notched the biggest election victory in 30 years, as angry voters savaged the outgoing Socialists for an economic crisis that has pushed unemployment in Spain to more than 20 percent, the highest in the European Union. Andrea Comas/Reuters

A local resident marked his ballot at home during early presidential voting in the village of Kyzyl-Berlik, Kyrgyzstan, in late October. Vladimir Pirogov/Reuters

Electoral officers recorded voting figures by lamplight during the presidential election in Cameroon's capital of Yaounde on Oct. 9. Voters faced delays and organizational snags in the election, in which President Paul Biya extended his 29-year rule over the central African state against a fragmented opposition. Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

An election worker recounted ballots near La Paz during Bolivia’s national elections on Oct. 16. David Mercado/Reuters

In La Marsa, Tunisia, a worker decorated streetlights with the nation’s flag the day before its historic general election on Oct. 23.Jamal Saidi/Reuters

A riot police officer stood guard near a banner of a Liberian flag in front of the National Elections Commission building during presidential elections in Monrovia in October. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won a majority of the votes during the first ballot, then was reelected by a landslide in a runoff vote Nov. 10. Luc Gnago/Reuters

Nicaraguan police carried ballot boxes destined for use in the presidential election Nov. 5. Former Sandinista rebel leader Daniel Ortega won a third term in a landslide victory.Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters

A Bulgarian man left a voting booth after marking his ballot during residential and local elections late last month in Sofia. Tsvetelina Belutova/Reuters

Mitzy, a West Highland terrier, sports an ‘I Voted’ sticker in front of the Salem Church Branch Library in Spotsylvania, Va.Peter Cihelka/The Free Lance-Star/AP

Assailed first by a debt crisis, then acting as a front line in Europe’s migrant crisis, Greece has had an extremely difficult few years. Yet it has avoided civil conflict and has remained in the eurozone, contrary to many expectations.